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promotes the equal liberation and preservation of every one of its members.18 It is equitable because it is common to all.19 It nurtures a universal society of equals, where everyone shares equal rights.20 It is durable because both, the armed forces and the Sovereign power guarantee its pledge: “each to all and all to each.”21 When each person enters into the General Covenant or Social Pact in the spirit of self- preservation, not only does he cede all his rights to the whole community, which is supremely exercised and directed by the Sovereign’s General Will,22 but he also exchanges his natural freedom for civil freedom.23 In ceding his rights, “he acquires more power to preserve what he has” because he gains “the same rights as others gain over him,”24 and thus, “he recovers the equivalent of everything he loses.”25 In this way, as he “gives himself to all, he gives himself to no one.”26 In this sublime motion from the state of nature to civil society, from “natural equality to moral and lawful equality,”27 and from “inequality in strength and intelligence to equality by covenant and by
a political, religious, social animal. Unlike Rousseau, Aristotle posits that by nature some men are masters, other slaves; and that this is natural and expedient. These ruling elements exist everywhere, he says. Just as the whole rules, the parts are ruled; the soul rules the body despotically, and just as the intellect rules the appetites, the mind rules the passions. He adds that this master-slave mentality is expedient, natural and right. By nature, some exercise authority, while others must obey. When this master-slave relationship is natural, both are friends because they have common interests; but when it is by law, it creates enmity and resentment. Aristotle. Politics. Chapter III, 3-13.
18 Ibid., Book I, Chapter 6.
19 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 4.
20 Ibid., Book I. Chapter 6.
21 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 4.
22 Rousseau defines Sovereignty “as the exercise of the General Will,” and
Sovereign “as the General or Collective Will.” It cannot be alienated. Book II. Chapter I.
23 Ibid., Book I. Chapter 6 and 7. 24 Ibid., Book I. Chapter 6.
25 Ibid., Chapter 6.
26 Ibid., Chapter 6.
27 Ibid., Chapter 10.
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